The "De-Familialization" Process of Human Resources in Private Enterprises

In recent years, stories about the process of "de-familyization" of private enterprises in China often appear in newspapers. From an enterprise with obvious family characteristics to a public company with de-family characteristics, only entrepreneurs have the final say.

Give up the family model and move towards joint operation.

There are many such cases in clothing enterprises. The entrepreneurial history of Good News Bird is one of them. 1984, Wu Zhize family founded Zhejiang Nash Clothing Co., Ltd., and by 1996, the total assets had reached more than 20 million yuan. But in Wenzhou, where clothing enterprises gather, it is impossible to develop without brands. But to be a brand requires strength and capital, so Wu Zhize decided to abandon the family model and move towards joint operation.

1In March, 1996, Nash Company merged with Zhejiang Baoxiniao Clothing Co., Ltd. and Zhejiang Oster Clothing Co., Ltd. to form Baoxiniao Group. This is also the first clothing group in Wenzhou to break the traditional family business model and set up voluntarily. Good news bird is far away from family management, advocates "immigrant culture" internally and introduces a large number of professional managers. By 2007, more than 50% of the senior managers and technicians of Baoxiniao Co., Ltd. were imported from other places, and the top management of the company, including the chairman and general manager, were professional managers.

Escape from family business and explore modern management

Nowadays, a new case of de-familization is on the rise, that is Pathfinder, a company that just landed in GEM, an outdoor product brand that often sounds misunderstood as a foreign brand, and it is realizing the transformation from a "mom-and-pop shop" to a modern management enterprise.

Sheng Faqiang, the founder of the company, is a restless man. From his early resignation to the establishment of Pathfinder brand, it was not smooth. "In those days, Pathfinder started in two rows of small bungalows at the foot of Xiangshan. All entrepreneurs are managers and porters; Both a designer and a salesperson. " Sheng Faqiang's company was also marked as a "mom-and-pop shop" at the initial stage: in the management of the company, besides the husband-and-wife relationship between Chairman and General Manager Sheng Faqiang and Director Wang Jing, the brother-in-law of Director and Executive Deputy General Manager Jiang Zhongfu, and Sheng Faqiang's nephew, niece and sister of Wang Jing, etc. These entrepreneurs in those days have now become shareholders of the company.

"Judging from the almost zero development of Pathfinder, it was very necessary to have a family when two rows of small bungalows started, the conditions were poor and the wages were very low. So from the shareholder level, we lock these people as shareholders of the company. This history is a normal development process. " Sheng Faqiang said frankly. However, he also stressed that since the company moved out of Xiangshan in 2004, more professional managers have been introduced to participate in management: Zhang Cheng, the current chief financial officer, returned from studying in Singapore and is a certified public accountant; The vice president of marketing worked in a Fortune 500 company ... "Except for a few individuals, senior managers have no contact with others. It can be said that the change of managers' de-familization is already obvious. " Sheng Faqiang said with a smile. His wife, Wang Jing, is currently the director and product technical director of R&D Center, but she is not directly involved in the management of the company.

"After the company is listed on the GEM, because the platform is broader, it will introduce more professional managers and push the Pathfinder business to a new stage of becoming stronger and bigger." This is Sheng Faqiang's goal.

Scientific management mechanism, evergreen enterprise life

Perhaps, in the future, there will be more private enterprises in China, which will practice this process from the "familyization of holding a group to keep warm" in the early stage to the "de-familyization of becoming bigger and stronger" in the later stage. Scholars in the industry pointed out that there are inevitable reasons for private enterprises to choose "de-familyization". When you are self-employed, you can hire a few helpers to take care of yourself. Three times five divided by two is easy. However, over the years, things have changed. The scale of enterprises has expanded, from small factories to large factories, from large factories to companies, and companies have been upgraded to group companies. Capital is still family-owned, but the expansion of family scale is not as fast as that of enterprises, so there is a serious shortage of managers In addition, compared with professional managers, it is difficult for family members to accept new technologies and new knowledge, and the contradiction between rapid development and lagging management begins to appear.

However, for a real family-owned enterprise, you can't kill it with a stick. Fortune 500 companies dominate the world, 1/3 is a family business: 80% of small and medium-sized enterprises in the United States are family businesses: DuPont, Panasonic, Zheng Da and so on are world-famous modern enterprises. In fact, the vitality of family-owned enterprises comes from the loyalty of internal members and the sense of security and cohesion brought by mutual trust. Non-familial management mechanism is the cornerstone of enterprise evergreen.